Congressman Tom Kean Jr. Opens Up About Depression After Three-Month Leave

When Republican congressman Tom Kean Jr. stepped away from Capitol Hill back in March, nobody knew exactly why. Three months of silence followed—missed votes, vague statements about a“personal medical issue,”and plenty of speculation. But when the 57-year-old New Jersey congressman returned to the House floor on Tuesday, June 30, he didn’t dodge the question. He answered it directly, and in doing so, he shifted the conversation in a way that matters.

Kean revealed he’d been undergoing treatment for depression. Not the casual“I’m feeling down”kind of depression, but the clinical, life-altering kind that affects your body, your mind, and your ability to show up for yourself.“Asking for help is not a weakness. It is a strength,”he told his colleagues during his return speech. It’s a simple statement, but coming from a sitting congressman—a guy with a record to defend, an election to win, and the political machinery of Washington watching his every move—it landed with real weight.

What makes this moment significant isn’t just that a high-profile politician opened up about mental health. It’s what he said about how long depression had been operating in his life without him fully recognizing it. Kean went to the hospital for testing on other health concerns and was diagnosed with depression in the process. That detail matters because it highlights something most people don’t talk about: depression doesn’t always announce itself. It can masquerade as something else or hide in plain sight until you’re forced to look directly at it.

During his three-month absence, Kean missed more than 140 votes. He didn’t hide from that accountability either.“I take my responsibilities seriously and have a strong record of showing up and delivering, which makes this absence all the more difficult,”he acknowledged. There’s no spin there, no excuse-making. Just the reality that sometimes you have to step back to move forward. His congressional team kept constituent services running. His campaign team kept the machine moving. But Kean himself had to stop and deal with the work that nobody else could do for him.

He’s returning to an election cycle—he’s running as an unopposed Republican primary candidate and will face Democrat Rebecca Bennett in the general election later this year. President Donald Trump endorsed him during his absence, but endorsements don’t heal. Only time and treatment do that. And as Kean put it in his House floor remarks, there’s“no timeline for healing, there is no timeline for recovery, only the work of getting better one day at a time.”That’s not political language. That’s someone who’s lived it talking straight about what recovery actually looks like.